Northeastern University has the third highest number of international students in the country, according to statistics published by the Institute of International Education or IIE. Northeastern hosts 16,075 international students overall, trailing New York University and the University of Southern California.
Northeastern's student community represents approximately 145 nations and has 3,000 employers worldwide. With so many international students attending Northeastern, the question is often asked: What makes this university so attractive to international students?
“I think the uniqueness of what we offer at Northeastern is threefold,” said Mallik Sundharam, associate vice president for international enrollment management and provost for the Office of Global Services.
“The three key features are experiential learning — mostly collaboration — as well as interdisciplinary education opportunities and the general globalization of the world,” Sundharam said.
For many international students, opportunities to work with both US and international companies attracted them to Northeastern.
“The co-op program is what attracted me to Northeastern the most,” said Weijia Gaom, a freshman international business major from Fujian, China. “From the people I've talked to, I think that's what most international students like the most.”
Weijia Gaom is a first-year international company from Fujian, China.
Interdisciplinary education opportunities at Northeastern also play a role in attracting students – international and domestic – to the university. In particular, the possibility of studying combined majors and the possibility of creating unique majors is very attractive to students. Northeastern can help students specialize and develop a variety of skills, some of which may be applicable to jobs that have recently emerged or have yet to exist.
The location of schools is also a known factor affecting the number of international students. The cities where the top three schools with the most foreign students are, in consecutive order, New York, Los Angeles and Boston. This trend shows that international students are likely to be attracted to larger cities.
“Location was important to me when I was applying — I wanted a school on the east coast so it would be easier to fly home for the holidays,” said Isabel Langermann-Howard, a freshman philosophy major from Copenhagen, Denmark. Northeastern was in a perfect location to fit it.
Cathline Jean, a sophomore health sciences major from Silver Spring, Maryland commented on the general attitude toward the international student population that she has observed on the NU campus thus far.
“From what I've seen, Northeastern prides itself on being a global institution and both [in] the feeling of having opportunities to travel and study internationally, as well as having a diverse community with people from many countries,” said Jean.
According to Open Doors 2019 Newsletter: Massachusetts, the state hosts the fourth most international students in the country, after California, New York and Texas. The top countries of origin for international students in Massachusetts are China, India, South Korea, Canada and Vietnam.
International students from China make up 35.6 percent of Massachusetts' international student population, followed by Indian students at 17.7 percent, South Korean students at 4.2 percent, Canadian students at 3.6 percent, and students from Vietnam at 2.2 percent.
“Many universities see international students as a number they can add to their enrollment statistics, but when it comes to Northeastern, we've always thought, 'How do we integrate the experiences and cultural knowledge that students bring to campus to make it a global environment;” Sundharam said.
Sundharam said the Office of Global Services is working to focus on how they can integrate SAIL, or Integrated Learning Program Self-authored in campus life through cultural events like Diwali. These types of campus events help encourage both international and domestic students to participate and learn from multicultural experiences that are easily accessible to them.
“I think having a lot of international students helps to contribute to the classroom because people provide something that is specifically related to their country's background,” Gaom said. “I don't think that's as common on other campuses. Each group will have people from different places, each question produces a different answer.”
The circles indicate the number of international students at the institution in the given year. the size is proportional to the international population. Data from the Institute of International Education.
